fiction and musings from a gay black dude with delusions above his station
Members of the 1% have been pitching hissy fits lately over perceived slights and injustices. One recently declared that there is a “war” against the 1% and then compared the outrage over the rich to the Nazi anti-Jewish pogrom Kristallnacht. He later apologized, sort of. Last weekend, Think Progress highlighted comments by Bayer CEO Marijn…
Of course, J hadn’t been gone a full week before I started to pursue the possibility of a trip to Pyongyang. The idea of going there had always intrigued me, but now I had a purpose. I still felt very skeptical, though, that J would end up as one of my tour guides. First, I…
He liked to be called J, so even his name remained a mystery. We had dinner together a few times. We saw a movie together. I asked teasingly if these things were outside the bounds of tolerance from his government. He only smiled. I actually referenced his peculiar homeland very infrequently. It sat in the…
They came out in Levis. They came out in flannel. Some wore dresses. Some wore fine suits. Some looked like they had just gotten off from work. People waited in long lines. Many waited with them, to witness the moment, to share the moment. A Boy Scouts troop brought some of them pizza. This was…
His uniform and the strong sense of purpose with which he came at me caused an instinctual reaction. I no longer roamed freely around an open market in small-town Malaysia. I was back home in South Central, a frightened nappy-headed kid who knew he hadn’t done anything wrong, but felt a need to flee anyway….
There is an old stool sitting in the back of the garage next to the treadmill. It has gray painted metal legs and a round wooden seat. Part of the seat broke away, exposing some of the metal support underneath. How this happened I couldn’t say. I cannot recall a time when it did not…
[Originally posted in December 2010. Since I associate Honey Cake with Christmastime, and since I’m about to make the first of the seasonal honey cakes tonight, I thought I’d repost this early gar spot piece. The recipe for this tasty Dutch treat is at the end.] Some time in November 1975, I was home from…
[Originally published in February 2012.] When I was about 13 I had to endure a week at Reverend Schlep’s Summer Camp for Men and Boys. It’s a right of passage in my family. My grandfather took my father. My father took my older brothers Mark and Karl, Jr., when they reached the right age. Now…
Spring 1985. UCLA. We named our protest encampment Mandela City. I was lying on a sleeping bag in a tent on a grassy field in front of Schoenberg Hall, a sitar that I borrowed from the Music Department on one side, my shortwave radio on the other. I took the shortwave and extended the telescopic…
Tim Schaefer married his boyfriend in 2007. He gave his father, United Methodist pastor Frank Schaefer, a choice: Will you officiate at the wedding? Tim said that he didn’t want to put his father in a hard position, but at the same time, he thought it would seem disrespectful if he didn’t ask. So he…
